LAHORE: No main leader of the PML-N attended the party’s ‘workers’ convention” held in the city on Wednesday because of a reported split between the Maryam and Hamza groups.

The convention was held at the party’s Model Town headquarters on the direction of its supreme leader Nawaz Sharif, in a bid to moblise the workers in anticipation of snap polls in the province in case Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi dissolves the Punjab Assembly on the direction of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan.

However, the exercise turned out to be a big disappointment as not even a single central or provincial leader of the party showed up at the convention. Only the third tier leadership, including MNA Shaista Pervaiz, MPAs Imran Nazir, Rabia Farooqi and Raheela Khadim Hussain, and some former lawmakers like Mehr Ishtiaq and Shumaila Rana etc, were present.

PML-N Punjab president Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, who had conveyed the message of Nawaz Sharif in a meeting last Friday to the provincial presidents and general secretaries of the party regarding holding worker conventions and starting poll preparation, was also conspicuous by his absence.

Azma claims it was just a warm-up exercise

Old party workers say there had hardly been a PML-N workers convention in Lahore or elsewhere in the past that was not attended by any main leader. The first convention held in Islamabad after Nawaz’s message, was presided over by PML-N senior vice president and former premier Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, a couple of days ago.

The Lahore convention was being considered more significant since PTI chairman Imran Khan has been staying in the city for over one month (since he suffered bullet injuries during Wazirabad rally on Nov 3) and his party is holding rallies here almost on a daily basis.

“Absence of the main [PML-N] leadership at the convention in Lahore did not send a good message to the workers. The workers were disappointed when they did not find even a single main leader among them…this is rather a reflection of a defeated mindset on the part of the party leadership,” an insider told Dawn.

Blaming the grouping within the PML-N for the ‘failed show’, he said this had also delayed the appointment of the party’s Lahore president for more than a year. The post had fallen vacant after the demise of Pervaiz Malik, but infighting between the Maryam and Hamza groups led to an inordinate delay in the important appointment in a city that used to be a citadel of the Sharifs.

“Maryam Nawaz wants her favourite MPA Malik Saiful Malook Khokhar to fill the slot [of party’s Lahore president], while Hamza Shehbaz and Khawaja Saad Rafique are lobbying for MPA Rana Mashood,” he says, adding that Nawaz Sharif appeared to be too busy to look into this matter from London. Khokhar brothers are very close to the elder Sharif and his daughter, being major ‘financiers’ of the party.

Hamza Shehbaz, opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly, has been in hibernation since he lost the chief minister’s election to Chaudhry Parvez Elahi in July.

Hamza was supposed to preside over Lahore convention, but he left for London a day earlier (Tuesday). Maryam Nawaz is already in London since the last October and has yet to announce her return. Nawaz Sharif is expected to return from UK ahead of elections, the party says.

“Today’s workers convention could have been a good opportunity for Suleman Shehbaz, who recently returned from London after a four-year self-exile, to make a strong political statement,” the party insider says.

When asked to comment, PML-N Punjab information secretary Azma Bokhari claimed: “No main leader was invited to the convention. This was a ‘local convention’ that was called to make preparations for the major workers convention to be held in the city.” She, however, did not give any date for the “major” convention.

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2022